"Contains over 8,500 entries on all aspects of environmental science and conservation. Social as well as scientific in focus, it provides comprehensive coverage of the social aspect of environmental science (including treaties, organisations, and agencies relating to the environment) and ecology, as well as biographies of key figures in the field. International in scope, it embraces a broad spectrum of environmental areas including sustainable development; biodiversity; conservation; environmental ethics, philosophy, and history; resource management; sociology; and policy on the environment. It also features over 30 highlighted entries on key topics, such as Air pollution, Chernobyl, El Nino, the Gaia hypothesis, and Ozone depletion, and 10 appendices covering a range of related subjects including international environmental treaties, the Beaufort scale, the Richter scale, the geologic timescale, and web links."